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Thursday, November 20, 2008

More Gray Hairs

That chair? The one that the kids were having so much fun on? The one that was such a great deal at a yard sale? Tonight it cost us a 50-dollar emergency room copay after Rachel swung it around too fast and Susie fell off, landing on her chin.

I didn't know chins could bleed that much.

On the bright side (because that's where I like to live), Susie's teeth weren't knocked out, the stitches at the ER only took 2 hours, and none of the other kids drank Larry's untouched glass of beer while he and I were at the hospital with our injured one.

Yeah, Larry was just settling down for a rare relaxing evening when all this happened. He should have known better, right?

While Susie was still screaming and Larry was attempting to stanch (sp?) the flow of blood, Rachel was yelling at me, "Get the band-aids! Get the Bactine!" She's a natural medic. I just hope she doesn't get any weird sewing ideas after she sees Susie's stitches.

There are 8 stitches on that little chin. Sensible guy that he is, Larry, after getting an initial glimpse of the damage inflicted, said to me, "Let's go. And don't look." I guess he didn't want to deal with an unconscious wife in addition to an injured child. Good call.

And, as usual in these situations, the parents are more traumatized than the child. Susie didn't even cry during the stitching. And she sang herself to sleep tonight while playing with the pretty hospital bracelet the "nice lady" gave her.

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It turns out that the manager at the bookstore is interested in hiring someone who has a kid-induced lobotomy. Imagine that! Can I interest you in our members' discount card?

37 comments:

Love ER trips given to us by our children. Little Man fell asleep before his last set of stitches too. Strange kids. I think you should get rid of all the chairs, this could have happened on a regular chair too.

Watch out for that chair! EB is my only one who has experienced stitches, twice, for the same injury. It didn't teach him to be careful, that's for sure! I'm glad it wasn't too traumatic for Susie. Congratulations on landing the job! We knew you had it in you. :)

Now I am wondering... if I leave a glass of beer on the counter, will it go untouched? Hmmmm... 4 boys, ages 17, 16, nearly 13, and 9 years. Doubtful.

If Rachel gets some sewing ideas from seeing Susie's stitches, maybe she will sew the heads back on all of the stuffed animals that she decapitated.

We had the same split chin a few years ago. It happened when a child who I had just warned to NOT lean on the screen door, continued to lean on the screen which promptly broke, sending the offending child chin-first to the pavement.He didn't cry while getting his stitches either.

A job in a bookstore? That is only marginally less wonderful than a job in a yarn shop! [Or the quilt shop I worked in 25 years ago, where I had both a small tab and an employee discount.]

Last time I had a co-pay at the ER, it was $125. That was when LittleBit had two injuries in one day while working tech crew at the school play. The teacher's son was surfing on a flat and ran over LittleBit's foot, and she got her hand smashed while trying to slow the curtain when somebody else rang it down improperly.

and i am horrible with blood. luckily, the two times our kids have needed stitches hubby was home. i think if he hadn't been the kids just might have bled to death. it evens out i guess because he can't handle puke. didn't do so well with the poopy diapers either. wait a minute! maybe it doesn't even out--there've been way more puke and poopy diapers in this house than blood! still, that's a good thing...

Ears. Ears bleed a lot. My husband knows that firsthand (his own ear, car accident, college). Knock on wood, no stitches yet for the offspring. Considering we don't HAVE a copay, even better. We have a deductible. Hmm, you know, we actually hit it this year, but I STILL don't want to have to take any kids to the ER.

Chins are bad bleeders. Both the twins have had chin stitches. But the worst was the gash right at thing 2's hairline that needed 25 stitches. We got a ride in the fun flashing-light mobile for that one. I have never seen so much blood in my life and I watch horror movies.

If she didn't clear the ER with her wails and then pick out her stitches yet, you are one lucky gal. I'm lucky too because that garage sale chair got hammered by the kids before anyone got injured. I firmly believe in super glue at this point when it comes to big gashes. As for the bookstore, they are so lucky and it sounds like a delightful job.

All stitching on the face, specially on a child, should be handled by a plastic surgeon at the hospital if you went into an ER. ER doctors can't picture a grown child, p.s.'s can. Have her looked at it by one to make sure it was done correctly.

Oh, poor thing! (And I'm guessing I'll be using this story as my reason NOT to get one; the kids - including the husband - begged for one all summer after seeing one in a store.) And isn't a job going to get in the way of blogging? Congrats anyway!

My daughter had stitches in her chin in first grade. She was leaning on the edge of the pool during swim class and some other kids decided to use her head as a diving board. Chins and concrete do not go together. I got the call that she "might" need a stitch or two... when I looked (yup I looked) I about died! So, off we went. She didn't cry or whine UNTIL she seen the needle... then all hades broke loose.

Oh, yes. Anna told me later that after we went running out of the house with Susie in our arms, she found Rachel (who had been spinning the chair with Susie on it) sitting downstairs on the couch with a very worried and confused expression on her face. Poor thing - we hadn't even thought of reassuring her before we left.

Oh, and: a plastic surgeon who operated on my daughter's almost-cancer-caught-in-time when she was a toddler told us to buy rolls of paper medical tape from the drugstore and keep it covering the incision site 24/7 for six months at a minimum. He said that would keep just enough pressure on it to keep the scarring way down. It worked.

Bookstore work does sound intriging. My BF has worked in Barnes and Noble for years and loves mant aspects of the job. She gets lots of free books too, as they get prerelease copies for employees. Also rub vitamin E on the scar. It helps it to fade away.

About Me

6 children, 1 husband (I'm boring that way). Here are the kids by name and age, to make it easy on you:
Theo (26), Anna (24), David (20), Brian (17), Rachel (15), and Susie (12, and now taller than I am).
No pictures, no real names, as my husband is totally paranoid. In a cute sort of way, of course...